The preparation of some cereal-based food products includes a holding step (sometimes known as tempering or ageing) intended to make the starch retrograde sufficiently to make the product acceptable for further processing. This may typically involve holding from 10 to 48 hours at room temperature.
An example is the production of certain snack products (sometimes called third-generation or 3G snacks) in a process including extrusion cooking, followed by cooling, holding and drying to make snack pellets which are expanded by heating (e.g. by frying In oil) to make the final snack product.
Another example is shredded cereals made by cooking whole grain (particularly wheat), followed by cooling, tempering, shredding, forming into biscuits and baking.
The ageing step is by nature a time and space consuming step, and a shortening of this step will give significant advantages to manufactures such as the possibility of reducing floor and rack space or increase production.